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New Release of Essence#: Omega-1 (Alpha Build 24)

The Omega-1 release contains bug fixes and internal improvements, and also includes preliminary support for networking using sockets. There will be a series of “Omega-N” releases, all of which will focus on implementing whatever is necessary in order to fully conform to the ANSI Smalltalk standard.

The name “Omega” is a reference to “the Alpha and the Omega,” because the builds in the Omega release series will be the final set of builds before the project status is promoted to Beta.

The Omega-1 release adds classes to the Essence# Standard Library that represent the fundamental classes in the .Net Base Class Library for sending and receiving data over the IP protocol. The Essence# Standard Library will be installed by the installer program attached to this release. It may also be obtained separately fromGitHub.

None of the utility scripts that aid in developing Essence# code were changed in this release. For more information on the scripts, please see the documentation.

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4 responses to “New Release of Essence#: Omega-1 (Alpha Build 24)”

Hello Alan, Congratulations on nearing the Beta stage of EssenceSharp development. I’m an app level programmer, so looking forward to using EssenceSharp to build Ninja strategies, web apps and others.

As EssenceSharp and Pharo Smalltalk are cousins, I have the dream of writing Seaside web apps using EssenceSharp. If that’s possible, I would be testing “The Bootstrap for Seaside project” code with EssenceSharp. Bootstrap is a very capable framework for building responsive web apps that automatically adjust to the client-side display (e.g. tablets, smartphones, laptops…)

As EssenceSharp, in my view, could be ideal for use in a server-side capacity. A headless deployment. In that case, a Seaside/Bootstrap add-on would be a great presentation layer framework for EssenceSharp. Maybe the Smalltalk-to-JavaScript compiler, Amber Smalltalk could add value. My mind is searching for ways to use EssenceSharp and to contribute where I can.

I would appreciate your comments on the ability of EssenceSharp to potentially run Seaside: (a) as a runtime system, using ported code developed in Pharo, and hopefully (b) as a development environment for web apps. Also, (c) as a back-end for Amber Smalltalk web apps.

Recent news from Microsoft regarding open sourcing of significant portions of the .NET framework and forthcoming versions for Linux and OSx are good news for Essence#. Eventually, I’d love to see Essence# on Linux for server-side web apps.

All of the above points to a solid foundation for a multi-threaded Smalltalk / Essence# for server-side apps.

My vote / request for Essence# priorities are for development tools hosted in Essence#. For server-side apps, startup time is a lesser issue so DLL generation is not a priority. Getting to a point where robust apps can be written (and deployed on .NET runtimes) in Essense# is of great interest.

Alan, I would appreciate your tips on setting up an optimal development environment for Essence#? (using Pharo, VisualWorks, VAST or your recommended Smalltalk IDE) I’m guessing others (and I) would appreciate an article or post about the steps involved in writing code in a mature Smalltalk IDE and then migrating such code to Essence#. Thank you.